TY - JOUR T1 - Persistent pain: the need for a cooperative approach JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 639 LP - 640 DO - 10.3399/bjgp11X601488 VL - 61 IS - 591 AU - Christopher Dowrick Y1 - 2011/10/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/61/591/639.abstract N2 - Williams and Johnson present a strong argument against seeing chronic pain as an example of somatisation or as a medically unexplained symptom.1 They are concerned that such perspectives encourage undue psychologisation of physical complaints, and might be prejudicial to good patient care. They are particularly critical of documents produced by the Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme and Commissioning Support for London (CSL), as examples of initiatives which may lead to chronic pain sufferers being managed by practitioners without adequate grounding in the types of pain management strategies supported by NICE guidelines or by the Cochrane Pain, Palliative, and Supportive Care Group.I have considerable sympathy with their position, especially their idea that the general practice consultation is the ‘art of unravelling the medically unexplained’. I strongly agree about the dangers inherent in assuming that all complex symptom presentations indicate an underlying psychological problem. However, their arguments in favour of chronic pain as … ER -